(March 27, 2014, 9:28 PM ET) — Unionization efforts by football players at Northwestern University took a turn that shocked many in the labor law community on Wednesday when Peter Sung Ohr, director of the National Labor Relations Board’s Chicago region, ruled that grant-in-aid scholarship players for the school’s football team are “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act and directed an election for the players to choose whether to be represented by the College Athletes Players Association.

But the university has vowed to appeal the decision to the NLRB in Washington, which…